The Dragon Chronicles: The Floating Serpent
by shadowsteed
Summary: Two times they met by accident, the third time she answered his call. Once they fought, the second time she came to fight for him. And in the process, they all learned something about themselves and the universe they were living in... (summary's still a bit of a WIP)


_A/N: Hallo everybody, so I'm writing a new story. :) I saw the new It and it's such an amazing movie, a very interesting new take on Pennywise, as much as I still love Tim Curry's performance in the original series, this is better in so many aspects, very creepy and yet still kinda funny at times. :) Anyway, in this story, I'll be introducing a concept of mine that I had in my head for a long time, might take some time to explain it, so be patient. :)_

 _It starts with an event from the book, the incident with the two gay guys (that I hope will be in Chapter II), but for the purpose of my fanfic, I decided to shift the timeline a little bit more, and so this event now happens in 1961, which is 27 years before the death of Georgie which in the new movie happened in 1988. So, let's start with the Prologue. :)_

The Dragon Chronicles: The Floating Serpent

Prologue

 _An evening on July 21st, 1961…_

This story began, as many stories tend to begin, with a single, uncommitted person being in the right place in the right time. It began long ago, with two victims of a heinous, loathsome crime of hate, that would have had only sole survivor, were it not for that one person, being, by some unimaginable coincidence or some higher power's good will, close to that very bridge on that evening in that very small town. Don Hagarty would later try to explain the events to the not too very concerned officers of the local police department, and would have been promptly dubbed insane if it wasn't for the whole shock of the situation thing, which caused his ramblings to be excused as him being simply delusional. Yet every time they asked, the man described it the same way.

His tale started quite normally, he spoke of the evening he and his lover, a fellow by the name of Adrian Mellon, spent in the Falcon, one of the few bars in Derry, with the exception that this one was, almost exclusively, populated by what some would, in their feeble attempt to remain neutral on the subject, call "his kind of people". Being gay wasn't very well looked at at that time, and while this certainly wasn't all that was wrong with Derry in Hagarty's eyes, it was the main reason the atmosphere in this town, for him at least, seemed always so miserable. Because there were gay people in this town for sure, and the collective resentment that was displayed on every corner could almost be felt physically just by reading those hateful and ignorant messages scrawled upon the walls.

That night, however, their peaceful walk was turned into a nightmare, when the two were suddenly confronted by three young men, youngsters really, who were well known for their ill-thinking towards the homosexual community, and Adrian has made the unfortunate mistake of making enemy of their leader, a certain John Garton, also called Webby, beforehand.

The ensuing minutes have quickly turned to horror as Hagarty was forced to watch his partner getting beaten up, tossed between the three delinquents like a beach ball, him being spared the same treatment only for the fact that he wasn't originally a target. And even he has suffered a few ruthless hits as he tried to defend his lover. He recalled screaming for others to help, screaming his lungs out, and the deafening silence that echoed his desperate calls as there was no rush of footsteps, no answer of concerned voices from the distance. Nobody came to their rescue. Nobody cared.

And this is where Don Hagarty's tale began to take that crazy note that made the whole story so unbelievable. It started with a clown, yes, a clown, standing under the bridge in the Derry canal. He described a tall figure, dressed in strange, almost victorian looking costume with huge bright pom-poms in the front and tiny bells that rang softly every time it moved. The clown's face was white, it's head adorned with wisps of ruffled orange hair, its lips and nose painted blood red, with lines of the same crimson colour going from the edges of its mouth and up to its eyes. Those eyes were a strange, silvery blue, and yet, as Don watched, even though that clown was a fair distance away from him, he could have sworn he saw them glow yellow.

The clown smiled at him as he laid there, heaving for breath, spoke to him even. It actually knew his name, and there was a cold feeling somewhere inside his stomach, when suddenly, his attention was drawn away from the sight, as he heard a commotion on the bridge behind him. At this point, his account of the events have truly lost its credibility, for if the police, whose imagination was unfortunately rather poor, were able to accept the notion of a clown standing under the bridge, they surely weren't going to accept this.

For the next moment Hagarty spent by telling them of the shock he had when suddenly, a young girl sprang up from the shadows, seemingly out of nowhere, and attacked the three aggressors, and Hagarty watched as she, jumping on the closest one from behind, opened her mouth as wide as it was possible for her, and he gasped as she appearantly bit into the boy's throat, causing him to scream in pain as he stumbled under her weight. Forgetting all about the clown, he looked on as the girl jerked her head back suddenly, her long, blond hair flying around her head as she did, and with a horrible wet tearing sound she took some of the boy's flesh with her, and as she turned her head to the side briefly, breathing heavily with exertion, he saw against the street light the outline of two pairs of sharp fangs right where her canine teeth should have been, before she sank them into the boy's neck again.

Two minutes later, John "Webby" Garton was the last one to stand alive on that bridge, and sure enough the coward tried to run, and he ran for about two feet before he was tackled to the ground, and then, as he tried to crawl away, there was a small, but powerful foot stepping on his back to prevent him from escaping, as the girl stood above him like some kind of raptor observing its prey.

Suddenly, her head snapped to the side again, her nose and her brow furrowed as she sniffed, so loud he could actually hear it. She whirled around then, but she wasn't looking at him, no, she didn't seem to notice him at all. She was standing still, like a statue, her nostrils flaring as she smelled the air, looking down into the water, her expression one of utter confusion, and knowing what she must've been looking at, Hagarty followed her look, only to discover that clown was nowhere to be seen. Only a single, red balloon was lazily bobbing up and down, tied up to the bridge's post by a red string.

After a while, the girl took a step back and made a soft snorting sound, which was definitely human, but there was an undertone there that gave it a sort of animalistic quality, it sounded almost horse-like or some other big animal. She glanced down, making sure her last catch was not going to run away, and then she moved to the two other bodies lying motionless on the ground.

When Hagarty saw what she was doing, clearly this time, it took all his self control not to scream, and when he heard the crunching of the breaking bones, he couldn't hold the terrified gasp that escaped him. At that the girl, or the creature that was the girl, raised her head and looked straight at him, and he could see that her eyes too were glowing, only her's were shining blue, almost white, and the glow faded as soon as she realised who he was, until her eyes actually looked quite human, a nice shade of gray blue color.

She stood up, quickly wiped the blood of her chin, and smiled, kindly, without showing her teeth. She seemed like a perfectly human being now, and if he didn't know any better, he would never doubt that she was just that. "Sorry if I scared you." she said, looking to the side quickly as if she could hear something that he couldn't. "I can assure you these," she pointed at the three unfortunate youths at her feet. "won't be ale to do so again."

"Who… who are you?" he managed to ask, trying to ignore the soft moaning John "Webby" Garton was making as he laid on the ground, unable to do anything as he was paralysed by fear and pain.

"I'm… nobody important." she replied, giving him another smile. "And I'm not the one you should concern yourself with anyway." she added, and her words suddenly reminded him as he turned and searched frantically for the one he nearly forgot about in his shock. "Adrian!" he screamed, and ran to him as fast as he could, and he was relieved to find his lover still alive, beat up badly, but still alive. As he helped him stand up, hoisting his arms around his shoulders to support him, the girl suddenly came up from behind them, looking at Adrian with a mildly curious, but clearly regretful expression. From this angle, she was actually surprisingly small, but there was something about her that seemed almost… regal, as she stared at them. Then she smiled again, and the impression vanished like a bubble.

"You should get your mate to a hospital." she said, and again her head turned, as if she was listening to something, and yet the air around them was silent. A shiver ran down his spine, and he quickly turned, walking in the direction of the town as he held on to his boyfriend's hands, when he remembered that he should maybe thank the stranger, whoever or whatever it was, for saving their lives. But when he looked back, taking a breath, he saw that she was gone. And so he urged his lover to go, and they left, without looking back again, and so they both missed the two flaming, yellow-red eyes and the white-gloved hand as it reached towards the still living body of "Webby" Garton, and the figure of a clown as it looked towards the way their savior has vanished, a calculating look in its eyes as it stared, before it sank its many sharp teeth into its most recent meal.


End file.
